News

Freedom Cycle - Sand Del Lee report

August 16, 2007

Team Freedom Cycle Team Green Kawasaki had a picture perfect event in Sand Del Ontario.Team Freedoms Heidi Cooke entered the weekend with a commanding 33 point lead,but a couple of fast American girls showed up,trying to upset the Kawasaki stars weekend.The team decided to play it safe in the first moto and secure the championship and then go for broke in the second moto.Heidi shadowed top American rider Sarah Whitmore for the entire moto,playing it smart,as she had a large gap over her nearest rival in the points,Suzuki's Jolene Van Vugt.Cooke finished the moto a few seconds behind Whitmore,but more importantly,had earned enough points to secure her sixth Canadian womens crown.Heidi Cooke is an ambassador for Canadian womens motocross,and her domination of this series will go down in history along side other great Canadian riders such as Jean Sabastian Roy and Ross Pederson. With the championship out of the way,Heidi was determined to take the race to Whitmore in the second moto,and that she did.Heidi pulled a huge holeshot,while Whitmore was mired back in the pack after a poor start.Sarah had a few more problems when she stalled trying to pass for position.This all added up to a 20 second lead for Heidi,but we knew that was not safe as the American is extremely quick,which she proved by throwing caution to the wind.Heidi was running consistant fast laps out front,while Whitmore was flying through the field in persuit of our champion.The crowd was out on the track encouraging both riders as the white flag came out and Whitmore had closed to within a bike length.Heidi gave it everything she had to hold off the charging American,with the two riders entering the final 2 turns side by side.Cooke pinned her KX250f to the stops and held off Sarah to take the moto win and the overall for the day.Heidi took her place on the podium as the 2007 Canadian Womens Motocross Champion,Congradulations Heidi!!!!! In MX1 action,Freedom Cycle's Kyle Elliott again qualified easily for the race program on his KX450F,even though he had never been to the track before.Kyle pulled another great start and filed into fourteenth place on the start and held there until about half way when an endo on the rough track surface pushed him back in the pack,eventually finishing in 24th spot.The second moto start was even better as he rounded the first turn in tenth position.Elliott then passed two more riders and was running in eighth position for awhile.The track was getting rougher by the minute and was taking a toll on the young rider.After a stall while battling for position,Kyle managed to bring it home in 26th position for a 28th place finish on the day.This race was a great experience for Kyle and he knows what he has to do to compete at this level.We could plainly see that Kyle has the speed to run in the top fifteen Nationally,and this is very encouraging to him and Team Freedom. Team Freedom now takes on the Atlantic Regions Fall Series,looking for more championships for Kawasaki!!